IBM Mainframes: Still the Backbone of Today’s Global Commerce

IBM Mainframe

It appears that the introduction of IBM’s most powerful mainframe ever, the z14, had a significant effect in IBM’s recently announced 3Q 2017 results. According to Ginni Rometty, IBM chairman, president and CEO, “There was enthusiastic adoption of IBM’s new z14 mainframe, which delivers breakthrough security capabilities to our clients.”

When you think about it, IBM mainframes are incredibly pervasive in the entire world’s global commerce today. It has been referred to as the most powerful transaction processing system of the cloud era, according to Nanalyze (Nanalyze provides objective information about companies involved in disruptive technologies so that investors can make informed investment decisions.)

Nanalyze went on to say: “IBM mainframes are literally the backbone of today’s global commerce handling more than 30 billion transactions a day (more than the number of daily Google searches) including:

87 percent of all credit card transactions ($8 trillion a year)

29 billion ATM transactions ($5 billion a day)

4 billion passenger flights a year

68% of the world’s production workloads at just 6% of total IT costs

Citi uses IBM mainframes to process 150,000 transactions a second.

The reason why the IBM mainframe remains entrenched in 92 of the top 100 banks in the world is because you just can’t compete with them on cost at the moment.”

Origin: Art Zeigler den 7. november 2017

The Open Mainframe Project

Open mainframe

The Open Mainframe Project was established to create an open source, technical community that industry and community participants may easily participate in and so that they may contribute to the creation of assets and materials that will benefit the ecosystem around Linux and open source software on the mainframe.

DataKinetics joined the Open Mainframe Project in November of 2015 because it aligns perfectly with what we do at DataKinetics. We’ve been developing products and partnering with other ISVs to provide solutions for multi-platform enterprises for several years now, and intend to do even more in the months and years to come.

Linux on the mainframe

When IBM shocked the mainframe community, and launched Linux on the mainframe in the year 2000, it was a ‘shot heard around the world’. Immediately it became obvious that the mainframe was about to change forever – and that was a change for the better.

There was no danger then, and there is no danger now of the mainframe legacy passing away. Large enterprises are retaining their high-value z/OS assets, and will do so for many years to come. Why? Primarily because of their massive fiscal investments in the technology, but no less so because the mainframe performs like a champ.

No, the legacy mainframe usage isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. But the mainframe is seeing and will continue to see its most significant growth on the Linux side, and that will be accelerated by initiatives like the Open Mainframe Project.